Grinder hesitates half a beat. “I’m still confirming.”
Smoke hears enough to snarl. “Another club?”
“Just ride,” Grinder says. “I’ll text what I confirm. And I’ll send it wide so everyone can make their way in that direction.”
The call ends.
I don’t think.
I don’t hesitate. I twist the throttle until the world blurs. Smoke stays on my flank, bike roaring like an angry animal. The road narrows from highway to two-lane, then to cracked asphalt lined with trees. Houses thin out. Mailboxes become rarer. The sky lowers, gray pressing into the woods.
My phone pings with Grinder’s text.
LLC property: “Pine Hollow Holdings.” Registered agent ties to known associate of “Iron Soldiers” support network.
Iron Soldiers.
The name means nothing to me personally, but the way Smoke’s posture changes when I shout it over the wind tells me it means something he’s heard before.
“Problem?” I yell.
Smoke’s voice is grim. “They ain’t friends.”
Good. Because I’m not planning on being friendly. We turn onto a dirt road that looks like it doesn’t want to be found. Mud splashes up under the fenders. Trees close in. The air smells like wet bark and old leaves.
The map dot Grinder sent sits ahead.
A mile.
Half mile.
My pulse hammers.
I’m so focused on the road that I almost miss it—faint tire tracks veering off into the brush, where someone’s driven over the edge of the path and tried to hide the trail.
Smoke sees it too. He points.
We cut into it, bikes bouncing over roots and ruts until the trees open up into a small clearing.
And there it is maybe a quarter of a mile in the distance.
A house.
Not a nice one. Not a trailer. Something in between—an old place with boarded windows and dark sheets pulled tight inside. A truck parked off to the side. A white cargo van with a dent in the rear quarter panel, half-hidden behind the shed.
My whole body goes rigid.
That’s it. That’s the van. Smoke cuts his engine. I kill mine a second later, the silence slamming down like a weight. No need to make things known before we are truly ready.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Because this is the moment. The one where you either find her alive—Or—I swallow hard, forcing the thought away.
Smoke draws his gun. Looks at me. “We calling this in?”
Wrath’s voice echoes in my head, “Bring her home. Not revenge.”
But another voice is louder. Danae’s. Soft in my ear on the phone. I miss you.
I pull my gun from my waistband, chamber a round. “We call,” I state, because I’m not stupid. Not today.
